Recently it was declared to the world that Penn Badgley (Gossip Girl's Dan Humphrey) was cast to play the late musician Jeff Buckley in a biopic that has been in the works for six years.... but that's not really accurate. Here's what we learned today: more ›

The upcoming Jeff Buckley biopic reportedly has a leading man, and while Robert Pattinson was rumored to be "obsessed" with landing the role, he's now been beat out by Gossip Girl's Penn Badgley, who plays Dan Humphrey on the show. more ›

Like an elementary school kid who sees his teacher at a movie theater or in the grocery store, and is shocked that he or she doesn't sleep in the school's gym at night and requires food to survive, the media occasionally will note that librarians are not uniformly dour spinsters intent on shushing you and collecting late fines. The New York Sun ran an article Thursday regarding the growing number of librarians who live and socialize in Williamsburg. A group called the Desk Set––made up of librarians, archivists, publishers, illustrators, and the like––was formed by area residents in an attempt to improve the image of librarians beyond the typical stereotypes. They hosted a dance party on Memorial Day weekend, where young professionals gathered and drank cocktails with Dewey Decimal designations that alluded to their identities. more ›

Ten years ago today Jeff Buckley drowned while taking an evening swim. Buckley had many ties to this city, first moving here in 1990 (though only staying for seven months at that time). He was back in the spring of 1991 to perform his first show, a tribute concert to his father, Tim Buckley. The event was held at St. Ann's Church on April 26th, 1991, where the singer announced: "This is not a springboard, this is something very personal." more ›

People seem to describe bands by listing off names of other bands they sound like. It's akin to when you meet someone, develop a crush, and try to explain to your friend who lives across the country what this person looks like. You list off a mixture of famous people to create an image that becomes a muddied version of reality. In fact when we first heard this band we had to stop what we were doing and compose ourselves and an email to our friend in Colorado. And, well, if you want the muddied descriptive here we go. Imagine some alternate universe in which Massive Attack and Jeff Buckley had just listened to , then performed a show together of all original trip hop/rock songs...this is Benzos. They are complex, textured rocktronica and NYC has developed a huge crush. more ›

Morning Theft, fresh off the bus from Boston in 2003, have been desribed as Pearl Jam meets Travis, Nirvana meets the Cure, the Pixies meets Radiohead...you get the point. But these guys have their own sound. And it sounds good. They're the band who has been (not so) silently brooding in the corner of the indie rock scene. They're loud. They're catchy. They're pensive mood rock. Gothamist (and pretty much everyone below 14th St) loves Morning Theft, you should too. Go check them out for free at Luna Lounge tomorrow night. More details after the interview... more ›

A glimpse into the musical tastes of some bloggers can be seen at Professor Barnhardt's Journal, where Bob Sassone asked a few for their ultimate mix of 20 songs from the past 25 years, including me. Bob told us to "list your favorites, not some list of 'best' or 'popular' or 'influential,' or whatever VH-1 was doing with that thing." Lots of bloggers seem to be They Might Be Giants fans. Even so, fellow contributor, 601am's Aaron, says his list "runs towards the embarassing," but as we at Gothamist know, everything can be embarassing - friends, family, hairstyles, behavior - so we take embarassing to be pretty status quo. Also, creating a mix, though it's permanent, is just a glimpse into one moment of your life (the science of a mix can be more elegantly explained in High Fidelity), and I expect my own list would be different tomorrow. more ›

100 Best Songs?
Gothamist takes aim at VH1's stupid new list (yes, an easy target, but still fun) with some of their and their readers' favorites. more ›